Turk Faction Fights Label of Genocide in Schools Bill

A Southern California group of Turkish-Americans, with headquarters in Irvine, has begun a campaign to defeat proposed legislation that would add the deaths of thousands of Armenians during World War I to the list of genocides California schoolchildren learn about.

The American-Turkish Assn. of Southern California and its parent national organization, the Assembly of Turkish-Armenian Assns., contend in ads recently placed in Northern and Southern California newspapers that the new curriculum is being produced under political pressure from the office of Gov. George Deukmejian, who is of Armenian descent.

Curriculum planners, “under the political pressure of the governor’s office and a hate-motivated lobby of Armenian extremists, are ramming through a human-rights and genocide-studies program that will turn classrooms into battlegrounds for ancient blood feuds,” says one of the ads, which ran in an Orange County newspaper last weekend.

At the center of the controversy is proposed legislation introduced by Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles). It would add the genocide of Armenians in Turkey during World War I and the internment of Japanese-Americans in the United States during World War II to the subjects addressed by state curriculum concerning genocide and human-rights violations, a program that was established by state legislation two years ago.

The bill was passed on a 10-0 vote Wednesday by the state Senate Appropriations Committee and now heads to the Senate floor.

Armenians and Turks for years have argued bitterly about the facts surrounding the deaths of Armenians in Turkey under the Ottoman Empire. Many historians agree that there was a genocide of Armenians in the obscure reaches of eastern Turkey in 1915-18.

Turkey denies that a genocide occurred and says Armenians, Turks, Muslims and Christians alike died during a civil war.

Spokesmen for Turkish-American groups said the proposed legislation will result in a one-sided version of the historical events. Children will be taught hate, not facts, said Savas Mirci, a board member of the American-Turkish Assn. of Southern California, which encompasses seven counties.

“If you’re going to talk about World War I,” he said, “the Armenian situation is one of the subjects, certainly. Then you talk about why and how it happened.

“But suppressing all the other facts and figures, coming out with only their (Armenian) side,” he said, is why his group objects.

Bonnie Joy Kaslan, chairwoman of educational and public affairs for the Assembly of Turkish-American Assns., said:

“It is not that the Turks are saying nothing happened. But if it is to be included (in the studies), do what is right, put in all perspectives. . . . There happen to be dissenting scholars. There is controversy. But if they (students) only receive one perspective, that stays with them the rest of their lives.”

Ad Campaign

Ads placed by Mirci’s group--and signed by the Assembly of Turkish-American Assns.--in the Sacramento Bee and the Orange County Register recently contended that the educational program will teach that the wartime tragedies were a genocide, “turning a deaf ear to what we Turkish-Americans and over 60 highly regarded American academicians, specializing in Turkic studies, have to say about their reckless labeling of Turks.

“The result . . . your children and ours will be reading texts and seeing films that . . . far from teaching respect for human rights . . . will fan the flames of hatred.”

The ad stated that Turkish-Americans are not asking for a “whitewash” of the last days of the Ottoman Empire but a balanced presentation of “the good and the bad.”

The ad continued:

“Isn’t it ironic that this unprecedented ‘creation-of-history-by-legislation’ is taking place while California has a ‘governor of Armenian descent’ in power?”

A spokesman for the governor denied that Deukmejian had exerted pressure to bring about the legislation. Roos, who is not known as a political ally of the Republican governor, introduced the legislation independently and did not consult Deukmejian’s office beforehand, said Deukmejian press secretary Kevin Brett.

However, the governor “supports the concept” of the bill, although he has disagreed with some of the particulars, Brett said.

“The advertisement is an excellent example of fiction writing and (is) deliberately intended to mislead the public regarding 20th-Century genocides,” he said. “The governor believes it is appropriate to instruct students about the genocides of this century, and only by remembering the past can we avoid repeats of these atrocities.

“The governor is not surprised by the advertisement, considering that the Turkish government and its sympathizers have steadfastly tried to rewrite history.”

Roos introduced the legislation while following up on 1985 legislation, introduced by Assemblyman Charles M. Calderon (D-Alhambra), that established model curriculum on studying genocide and human rights violations, Roos aide Lynn Montgomery said. That curriculum now addresses such issues as the Nazi extermination of millions of Jews, the man-made famine in the Ukraine in 1932-33, the murder of Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge and apartheid in South Africa.

Roos learned from the Department of Education that there was a lack of information about the Armenian and Japanese issues, Montgomery said.

As passed by the Assembly, the bill would have set aside $115,000 in state funds to produce two videotapes and set up a 15-member commission to determine their content. There would have been six representatives from both the Armenian and Japanese-American communities on the commission.

However, in negotiations with the governor’s office Wednesday, the bill was amended to use $100,000 from funds provided by the federal government to produce the videotapes and to leave their content to the Department of Education.

Roos, in a prepared statement, called the Turkish-Americans’ ad “a continuation of their campaign to distort history and prevent our children from learning of this very real occurrence of Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire during the early part of the century.”

The Roos statement continued: “My bill simply asks for two comprehensive films on two historic examples of genocide and human rights violations to (provide) a teaching tool for the implementation of the model curriculum. They are presupposing the contents of one of these films.”

Berdj Karapetian, executive director of the Southland-based Armenian National Committee of the Western United States, which supports the legislation, likewise condemned the ads.

He said there can be no teaching of both sides regarding the deaths of Armenians in Turkey: “There is only one side to the question of genocide.”

Historical lessons about genocides must be taught, Karapetian said, “so that they are not repeated.”

The intent of the Turkish-American groups, he said, “is to rewrite history and revise it so people won’t know what happened to Armenians in Turkey.”

The curriculum will not teach hatred, he said. “The genocide curriculum will talk about all kinds of genocide and human rights violations. . . . Because we talk about the Japanese internment, is that going to teach people to hate Americans? Is teaching about the Holocaust going to make people hate the Germans?

“Our intent is not to have the Department of Education teach hatred. That’s the last thing we want. We were victims of hatred, and that led to genocide.”